This study analyzed over 5,700 articles published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology from 1963 to 2007 to identify trends in topics studied in industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology. The results showed that some topics became more or less popular over time, and there were lagged relationships between societal issues related to work and the research conducted. However, much I-O research did not address important human capital trends. The authors suggest that for I-O psychology to be more relevant and achieve its goals, significant changes are needed, including narrowing the gap between academic research and practitioner needs.

1. Journal of Applied Psychology Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association
2008, Vol. 93, No. 5, 1062–1081 0021-9010/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.93.5.1062
Research in Industrial and Organizational Psychology From 1963 to 2007:
Changes, Choices, and Trends
Wayne F. Cascio and Herman Aguinis
University of Colorado Denver
The authors conducted a content analysis of all articles published in the Journal of Applied Psychology
and Personnel Psychology from January 1963 to May 2007 (N 5,780) to identify the relative attention
devoted to each of 15 broad topical areas and 50 more specific subareas in the field of industrial and
organizational (I–O) psychology. Results revealed that (a) some areas have become more (or less)
popular over time, whereas others have not changed much, and (b) there are some lagged relationships
between important societal issues that involve people and work settings (i.e., human-capital trends) and
I–O psychology research that addresses them. Also, much I–O psychology research does not address
human-capital trends. Extrapolating results from the past 45 years to the next decade suggests that the
field of I–O psychology is not likely to become more visible or more relevant to society at large or to
achieve the lofty goals it has set for itself unless researchers, practitioners, universities, and professional
organizations implement significant changes. In the aggregate, the changes address the broad challenge
of how to narrow the academic–practitioner divide.
Keywords: I–O psychology, research in, future of, human-capital trends
Significant scientific advances in the field of and industrial and Cascio, 2007b, 2008; Gelade, 2006; Hodgkinson, 2006; Markides,
organizational (I–O) psychology are documented in detail in sev- 2007; Rynes, 2007; Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001), despite
eral available reviews (e.g., Anderson, Ones, Sinangil, & Viswes- efforts to reduce it.
varan, 2001; Borman, Ilgen, & Klimoski, 2003; Dunnette & In light of these concerns, it seems reasonable to address ques-
Hough, 1990, 1991, 1992; Rogelberg, 2007; Triandis, Dunnette, & tions such as the following: What type of knowledge, in terms of
Hough, 1994). Although scientific advances are important in areas content, has I–O psychology produced and what is it currently
central to the field, such as assessment, validation, motivation, producing? Does the knowledge produced by I–O psychology
leadership, performance appraisal, training, data-analytic tech- address important societal issues that involve people and work
niques, and research methodology, one constant in the field has settings (i.e., human-capital trends)? Does I–O psychology pro-
been its support of the scientist–practitioner model (Bass, 1974; duce research that is relevant to employees, their managers,
Dunnette, 1990; Lapointe, 1990; McHenry, 2007; Murphy & Saal, broader stakeholders, and society at large and that informs human
1990; Rupp & Beal, 2007). resource management (HRM) practitioners and other organiza-
Unfortunately, there are concerns with the effective implemen- tional decision makers?
tation of the scientist–practitioner model because there is a serious For purposes of this article, we adopt Gelade’s (2006) definition
disconnect between the knowledge that academics are producing of practitioners, namely, those who make recommendations about
and the knowledge that practitioners are consuming (McHenry, the management or development of people in organizational set-
2007; Rynes, Colbert, & Brown, 2002). As a result, many orga- tings or advise those who do. Research is relevant to the extent that
nizations fail to adopt the practices that I–O psychology research it generates insights that practitioners find useful for understanding
suggests are most effective (Dipboye, 2007), and the scientist– their own organizations and situations better than before (Ver-
practitioner gap persists (Aguinis & Pierce, 2008; Anderson, 2007; meulen, 2007). In today’s age of accountability and inadequate
funding for research and universities in general, I–O psychology
surely would benefit from producing knowledge that is seen as
Wayne F. Cascio and Herman Aguinis, Business School, University of relevant and important by stakeholders outside of academic I–O
Colorado Denver. psychology circles and even outside of the I–O psychology field in
We thank Richard Klimoski, Frank Landy, Chuck Pierce, Steven Rogel- general (e.g., high-level university administrators, public policy-
berg, and Neal Schmitt for their extremely helpful comments on an earlier makers, members of the community at large).
version of this article. This research was conducted, in part, while Herman At one level, it seems ironic even to be asking questions related
Aguinis was on sabbatical leave from the University of Colorado Denver and to the broader relevance of I–O psychology research because the
holding visiting appointments at the University of Salamanca, Salamanca,
field, from its inception, was created to address, inform, and help
Spain, and the University of Puerto Rico–Ricinto de Rıo Piedras.
´
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to solve important human-capital challenges (e.g., selection of sol-
Wayne F. Cascio, Business School, University of Colorado Denver, diers to fill a wide variety of jobs in World Wars I and II). For
Campus Box 165, P.O. Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364. E-mail: example, consider the recent account of some of the classic appli-
Wayne.Cascio@ucdenver.edu cations of organizational psychology, along with rich detail about
1062

2. INDUSTRIAL–ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: 1963–2007 1063
the difficulties of practical implementation provided by Highhouse for narrowing the academic–practitioner divide, along with
(2007). That same sense of mission is true today, as Rogelberg changes that can be made by researchers, universities, and profes-
(2007, p. xxxv) noted, “In general the goals of I/O psychology are sional organizations. Our hope is that such changes might improve
to better understand and optimize the effectiveness, health, and human welfare in the workplace; inform debates over human-
well-being of both individuals and organizations.” Likewise, the capital issues that are critical to employees, their managers,
mission statement of the Society for Industrial and Organizational broader stakeholders, and society at large; and lead the field of I–O
Psychology (SIOP) is to enhance human well-being and perfor- psychology closer to achieving the lofty goals it has set for itself.
mance in organizational and work settings by promoting the sci-
ence, practice, and teaching of I–O psychology (SIOP, 2007).
Method
In the present article, we offer a 45-year (1963–2007) content
analysis and review of published research in I–O psychology in the Overview and Background
two leading journals in the field: Journal of Applied Psychology
(JAP) and Personnel Psychology (PPsych). Such an analysis and We used content analysis, which is a method that converts
review affords us the opportunity to assess the extent to which qualitative material into quantitative material that subsequently
the field of I–O psychology is producing research that addresses can be analyzed subject to the limitations of nominal-level mea-
the questions mentioned above and, therefore, allows us to surement (cf. Aguinis, Henle, & Ostroff, 2001; G. Shapiro &
inform the important discussion of the extent to which the field Markoff, 1997). More specifically, our data collection procedure
is achieving its goals and fulfilling its mission. consisted of manually coding every article published in every issue
Another purpose of this article is to determine whether the between January 1963 and May 2007 in JAP and PPsych on the
research literature in the field of I–O psychology, as well as two basis of its content. In total, we coded 5,780 articles in the two
characteristics of those who generate it— geographic location (i.e., journals (n 4,329 for JAP and n 1,451 for PPsych).
U.S. based vs. non-U.S. based) and affiliation (i.e., academic vs. Why did we begin with the year 1963? Initially, the rationale
nonacademic)—reflect patterns of stability and change. An in- was to cover a 30-year period, given that preliminary results of this
crease in non-U.S.-based authors over time would suggest a trend research were presented by Wayne F. Cascio as part of his presi-
toward the globalization of I–O psychology and also that the field dential address to SIOP in 1993. Although any starting point is
is responding to the broader societal trend toward globalization. In arbitrary, our decision to code all articles over a 45-year period
addition, an increase in nonacademic authors would suggest a was based on the rationale that this is certainly long enough to
trend toward research that is more amenable to implementation, identify trends reliably. On a related note, our 45-year time span
given that nonacademics often make decisions and plan interven- included a sufficiently large number of editors. Specifically, our
tions related to the topics their research addresses. review includes the following editorial terms for JAP (based on the
Previous reviews of the I–O psychology literature have been journal’s masthead): Kenneth E. Clark (1961–1970), Edwin A.
selective and have not addressed general content issues directly Fleishman (1971–1976), John P. Campbell (1977–1982), Robert
(Austin, Scherbaum, & Mahlman, 2002; Muchinsky, 1979; M. Guion (1983–1988), Neal Schmitt (1989 –1994), Philip Bobko
Strasser & Bateman, 1984). As a further step to locate any addi- (1995–1996), Kevin R. Murphy (1997–2002), and Sheldon Zedeck
tional content analyses of the I–O psychology literature, we man- (2003–2007). It also includes the following editorial terms for
ually searched each of the 153 issues of JAP and each of the 109 PPsych (based on the journal’s masthead): G. Frederic Kuder
issues PPsych from January 1980 to May 2007 for articles that (1959 –1963), John A. Hornaday (1964 –1969), Frederic Kuder
described analyses of the content of published literature in the and John A. Hornaday (1970 –1971), Frederic Kuder (1971–1974),
field. With the exceptions of the articles just cited, we found none. Milton D. Hakel (1974 –1984), Paul R. Sackett (1985–1990),
To our knowledge, therefore, our study is the first systematic Michael A. Campion (1991–1996), John R. Hollenbeck (1997–
assessment of the general content of published research articles in 2002), and Ann Marie Ryan (2003–2007). Finally, there are also
the field of I–O psychology covering more than four and one half parallels at the individual level. The time period from 1963 to 2007
decades, as reflected in the two leading journals in the field. The spans more than four decades, or roughly an entire professional
present article differs from previous reviews in that our focus is on career. Assuming a 5-year graduate training period, 45 years spans
topics, content areas, geographic location, author affiliations, and nine cohorts of new scholars in the field who contributed to the
the correspondence between published research and human-capital published literature and thus it is important to assess the aggregate
trends rather than on methodology or other narrower aspects of the nature of changes in that literature.
I–O psychology literature. Content analysis is primarily a qualitative methodology, but, as
In sum, to answer the questions included above, we examined noted above, it also includes a quantitative component, which
the topical areas investigated by each of the 5,780 articles pub- provides an advantage over other more purely qualitative methods,
lished in JAP and PPsych from January 1963 to May 2007. This is such as literary interpretation and hermeneutics (Duriau, Reger, &
the most extensive content analysis of the I–O psychology litera- Pfarrer, 2007). Content analysis methodology is especially suited
ture conducted to date. Our purposes are to (a) provide a descrip- for rigorous exploration of many important issues that are often
tion of topical areas that have received the most and least, as well difficult to study (Duriau et al., 2007). Also, it is particularly suited
as increased or decreased, attention over the past 45 years; (b) to answer the questions we posed in the introduction because, as
describe these results in light of important human-capital trends noted by Duriau et al. (2007), content analysis (a) provides a
within each decade; (c) examine lagged relationships between replicable methodology to access deep collective values (i.e., top-
published research and human-capital trends; and (d) discuss im- ical areas that are of more [or less] interest in the field of I–O
plications for the field of I–O psychology and propose strategies psychology), (b) is highly flexible (i.e., it allows us to categorize

3. 1064 CASCIO AND AGUINIS
articles into various topical areas in the field of I–O psychology), tions. Despite their limitations, we examined these data as addi-
and (c) is nonintrusive (i.e., authors of the articles we coded did not tional independent forms of evidence to answer the questions
participate actively in our research study). posed in the introduction.
Content Analysis Taxonomy Coding Process and Agreement Checks
To provide a systematic basis for content coding each article, we Wayne F. Cascio coded articles in JAP and PPsych from 1963
developed a taxonomy that included 15 broad categories, which to 1987, and a graduate student whom he trained, and who was
subsume 50 more specific ones. The final version of the taxonomy, naive to the purposes of the study, coded data from 1987 to 1992.
which was used to code all the articles, is contained in the Ap- As a check on interrater agreement, both individuals independently
pendix. Wayne F. Cascio developed the taxonomy in an iterative coded data from the year 1987. The Pearson correlation between
fashion. He began by identifying key themes, as reflected in I–O the frequency counts tallied by the graduate student and Wayne F.
psychology textbooks that described the field. He then pilot tested Cascio for each of the 15 categories included in the Appendix was
several early versions of the taxonomy by content coding 4 years .88. Wayne F. Cascio also coded all articles in JAP from 2001 to
of journal articles published in JAP and PPsych, two early years 2003, all articles in PPsych from 2004 to 2006, and the first and
(1965 and 1969) and two later years (1988 and 1991). The pilot third issues of JAP in 2007. A second I–O psychology graduate
test revealed the need for a more refined classification scheme to student, naive to the purposes of the study, coded the articles in
cover the broad range of topics that appeared in these two journals. JAP and PPsych from 1993 to 1997. Herman Aguinis coded all
The addition of the full range of 50 subcategories shown in the articles in PPsych for 1993–1994 and 1996 –1997, all articles in
Appendix resulted in a content-coding scheme that provided com- JAP and PPsych for 1998 –2000, all articles in PPsych for 2001–
plete coverage of all articles in the 4 years that comprised the pilot 2003 and 2007 (first issue only, given that our review goes to May
test. The taxonomy then was applied to all other years of published 2007), all articles in JAP from 2004 to 2006, and the second issue
articles. of JAP for 2007. We purposefully divided up the coding task this
Like any other taxonomy that is created inductively, we cannot way, with different coders coding different journals over time, to
say unequivocally that this is the only possible taxonomy. We can minimize any potential systematic coding bias.
say, however, that it is sufficiently comprehensive to classify each In cases where an article had a good fit with more than one
of the 5,780 articles included in our review. Also, it is important to category, we chose the category with the perceived best fit, which
note that the comparison of publication trends with broader may have led to the potential underrepresentation of some areas.
human-capital trends involves the inevitable task of trying to map However, there is no reason to believe that this potential under-
categories from one area onto the other. This can be challenging, representation was systematic across articles or that it affected
especially when the terms used by academics and practitioners do specific areas adversely. In other words, there is no evidence that
not overlap, as we illustrate in the Discussion section with the the resulting relative rank order of areas is biased.
particular case of talent management. Given the use of different As an additional check on the replicability of the coding process,
terminology, and sometimes different meanings attached to the we computed correlation coefficients between the frequency
same terms, the exercise of trying to map one set of categories onto counts tallied by the second graduate student and Herman Aguinis
the other is challenging, regardless of the categories included in the for each of the 15 categories included in the Appendix. Resulting
taxonomies. correlations were .94 for 1993, .98 for 1994, .93 for 1996, and .92
for 1997. This high level of agreement was expected because the
Geographic Location and Affiliation graduate student had completed all coursework toward a master’s
degree in I–O psychology and met several times with Wayne F.
We used the authors’ bylines on the first page of each article to Cascio to discuss the nature of the coding task (i.e., participated in
determine geographic location and affiliation. We defined aca- several coding training sessions) and Herman Aguinis is an expe-
demic as a university affiliation. We coded all other affiliations rienced researcher in I–O psychology who has coauthored a widely
(e.g., government, corporation, consulting organization, applied used graduate-level I–O psychology textbook with Wayne F. Cas-
research organization) as nonacademic. The rationale for including cio (Cascio & Aguinis, 2005). Thus, each of the four coders had a
geography is that greater participation of non-U.S.-based authors common, shared understanding (i.e., a shared mental model) of the
would be an indicator of a trend toward globalization (note that we field of I–O psychology and how to categorize each article, which
coded authors’ geographic location irrespective of data collection explains why the agreement among coders was so high.
location). The rationale for coding for affiliation is that, in our
opinion, authors not affiliated with universities are, on average, Time Blocks
more likely to conduct research that is amenable to implementation
because they usually make decisions and plan interventions related Although the coding of the articles was done year by year, we
to the topics of their research on a regular basis. At the same time, aggregated the results on the basis of 5-year time blocks, resulting in
some internal I–O psychologists may have narrow views and see the following nine time periods: (a) 1963–1967, (b) 1968–1972, (c)
only what is of interest to their organizations. Geographic location 1973–1977, (d) 1978 –1982, (e) 1983–1987, (f) 1988 –1992, (g)
and affiliation are less than perfect proxies, however, because there 1993–1997, (h) 1998 –2002, and (i) 2003–May 2007 (note that at the
are U.S.-based authors who are aware of and concerned about time of the writing of this article, only the first of the four issues of
global issues and academic authors who are aware of and con- 2007 PPsych and the first three of the six issues of 2007 JAP were
cerned about the implementation of research findings in organiza- available and included in the analyses). Five-year time blocks are

4. INDUSTRIAL–ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: 1963–2007 1065
arbitrary, but they represent a smoothing technique that is more likely
Row total
298
284
161
90
179
89
1,451
68
28
46
103
36
55
13
0
1
to reveal underlying trends. As we noted earlier, they also generally
represent a complete period of doctoral training. Examination of
content categories on a yearly basis creates noise, or illusory trends,
that tend to be clarified over longer time periods.
2003–2007
20
31
9
4
4
0
2
8
8
8
8
0
0
0
9
111
Results
We organize results into the following sections. First, we pro-
1998–2002
vide an analysis of trends regarding the 15 broad areas, including
36
32
14
9
5
0
4
11
2
7
9
2
0
1
14
146
areas for which there is an upward trend, a downward trend, and no
change. Second, we provide an analysis of trends regarding geo-
graphic location and affiliation. Third, we analyze trends regarding
the 50 subcategories. Finally, we analyze the correspondence
1993–1997
between published research in I–O psychology and major human-
37
36
18
10
2
1
4
19
5
6
2
4
0
0
6
150
capital trends identified by decade.
Trends Regarding the 15 Broad Topical Areas
1988–1992
26
41
9
14
9
7
8
11
2
1
4
2
0
0
6
140
Tables 1 and 2 include results for the entire 45-year period for
PPsych and JAP, respectively, for each of the 15 broad topical
areas. Table 1 reveals that the top five topical areas (ranked from
1983–1987
1 to 5) published in PPsych from 1963 to 2007 are as follows (the
30
34
23
13
12
4
12
16
5
2
2
0
0
0
10
163
first number in parentheses indicates the total number of articles
for each topic, and the second number indicates the percentage of
the 1,451 articles published on this topic over the entire 45-year
period): 1978–1982
Frequency Counts of Articles Based On Topical Areas For Personnel Psychology (1963–2007)
22
45
27
33
12
4
3
25
205
13
1
5
0
0
0
15
1. Methodology–psychometric issues (298; 20.54%),
2. Predictors of performance (284; 19.57%),
1973–1977
3. Work motivation and attitudes (179; 12.34%),
5
40
32
20
15
0
4
31
19
2
5
2
0
0
8
183
4. Performance measurement–work outcomes (161;
11.10%), and
1968–1972
5. Leader influences (103; 7.10%).
3
34
35
16
5
5
4
37
34
5
17
3
0
0
8
206
Table 2 reveals that the top five topical areas (ranked from 1 to
5) published in JAP from 1963 to 2007 differ only slightly from
1963–1967
those above (the first number in parentheses indicates the total
6
30
16
19
8
7
5
21
15
4
3
0
0
0
13
147
number of articles for each topic, and the second number indicates
the percentage of the 4,329 articles published on this topic over the
entire 45-year period):
Human factors–applied experimental psychology
1. Methodology–psychometric issues (940; 21.71%),
Research methodology–psychometric issues
Performance measurement–work outcomes
2. Work motivation and attitudes (688; 15.89%),
3. Predictors of performance (544; 12.57%),
Topical area
Work motivation and attitudes
4. Performance measurement–work outcomes (425;
Training and development
Predictors of performance
9.82%), and
Work groups–teams
Consumer behavior
5. Human factors–applied experimental psychology (372;
Industrial relations
Leader influences
Decision making
Reward systems
Column total
8.59%).
Societal issues
Career issues
Job analysis
To some extent, the minor difference between the two sets of
Table 1
top-ranked topical areas can be attributed to the fact that JAP
publishes a broader range of articles, namely those that comprise

5. 1066 CASCIO AND AGUINIS
the entire field of applied psychology, than does PPsych. In con-
Row total
940
544
425
152
688
240
121
138
152
372
169
4,329
120
66
107
95
trast, the convergence in the two sets of data over a 45-year period
is remarkable, particularly given that our review covers eight
editorial teams for JAP and nine editorial teams for PPsych. This
convergence provides evidence that both journals serve as sound
2003–2007
34 indicators of common underlying trends in the research produced
70
47
15
118
31
38
14
24
6
3
7
7
7
36
457
in the field of I–O psychology. At the same time, overall counts
may mask important underlying longitudinal trends. For example,
in JAP, note how the number of articles published in the area of
1998–2002
human factors–applied experimental psychology has decreased,
120
65
43
9
73
28
20
10
18
20
4
6
6
3
30
455
especially since 1983. At the same time, note how the number of
articles published in the area of work motivation and attitudes has
cycled up and (not too far) down over the 45-year period, whereas
those in the areas of predictors of performance and leader influ-
1993–1997
ences have remained relatively constant over time. The area of
212
28
27
16
31
18
5
7
12
8
2
6
6
5
17
400
methodology–psychometric issues has remained unchallenged as
the most popular topical area for most of the 45-year period,
declining only in the past few years (yet still remaining one of the
1988–1992
most popular areas).
119
52
63
18
78
16
11
15
20
32
25
8
20
7
12
496
With respect to PPsych, it published no articles on human
factors–applied experimental psychology over the 45-year period,
whereas the number of articles published in the top four areas
(methodology–psychometric issues, predictors of performance,
1983–1987
work motivation and attitudes, and performance measurement–
16
85
50
57
14
14
75
20
8
13
18
34
15
435
9
7
Frequency Counts of Articles Based On Topical Areas For Journal of Applied Psychology (1963–2007)
work outcomes) remained relatively constant over each 5-year
time block. In both PPsych and JAP, the number of articles
published in the broad area of societal issues ranked seventh over
1978–1982
the 45-year time period of the study.
21
87
55
67
17
10
69
38
5
11
14
55
16
6
14
485
At the bottom of the rankings in Table 1, in addition to zero
articles in the area of human factors–applied experimental psy-
chology, PPsych published relatively few articles in consumer
1973–1977
behavior (1), decision making (13), industrial relations (28), work
32
107
103
66
21
6
19
118
51
12
19
21
67
34
27
703
groups–teams (36), or reward systems (46). With respect to JAP
(see Table 2), the five lowest ranked areas of emphasis over the
45-year period were industrial relations (66), consumer behavior
(95), reward systems (107), job analysis (120), and work groups–
1968–1972
teams (121).
10
77
62
27
12
3
17
73
24
13
27
15
76
19
13
468
Trends Regarding Authors’ Geographic Location
and Affiliation
1963–1967
7
99
59
28
30
5
8
53
14
9
22
10
74
7
5
430
Table 3 includes geographic location and affiliation information
for PPsych and JAP. It is important to note that the total number
of authors computed for a given period may be slightly different
when this total is computed from different sources. Specifically, as
Human factors–applied experimental psychology
noted in Table 3 regarding PPsych, the total number of authors for
Research methodology–psychometric issues
the period from 1983 to 1987 is 336 on the basis of adding the
Performance measurement–work outcomes
academic-status-based categories and 333 on the basis of adding
the location-based categories. These minor differences, which
have no impact on our substantive results or conclusions, are due
Topical area
Work motivation and attitudes
to a highly reliable, yet less than perfect, coding process as
Training and development
described above (i.e., high correlations between counts produced
Predictors of performance
by independent coders).
Work groups–teams
Consumer behavior
Results are clear cut for both journals. The modal author is an
Industrial relations
Leader influences
Decision making
Reward systems
academic based in the United States. Although not even close to
Column total
Societal issues
Career issues
challenging the modal result, over time there is an increase in the
Job analysis
number of authors from outside of the United States. One notable
Table 2
result is the steady decrease in the proportion of nonacademic
authors, which reached a low of 4.67% for the most recent period